The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided in this application is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
A serious danger facing equipment operators of all kinds (lifts, scissor lifts, fork lifts, backhoes, etc.) is the risk of electrocution by accidentally coming into contact with a high-voltage line. There has long been a need to address this issue with systems design to protect equipment operators, and efforts have been made to create such systems.
For example, U.S. Patent App. No. 2010/0214094A1, U.S. Pat. No. 9,501,930, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,600,426 all teach proximity sensing for high-voltage lines, where the proximity sensing is accomplished based on principles of induction. But all of these references fail to contemplate advancements and improvements to the state of the art that result in, for example, safety benefits to equipment operators.
For example, none of these references contemplate improvements that can allow an automatically shut down system to be manually overridden to bring an operator out of danger. Moreover, past efforts to solve this problem have introduced complicated microcontrollers and fail to appreciate that simpler, analog systems can be more reliable and easier and more cost effective to implement.
These and all other extrinsic materials discussed in this application are incorporated by reference in their entirety. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided in this application, the definition of that term provided in this application applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
It has yet to be appreciated that improvements can be made to equipment safety systems to prevent electrocution of equipment operators. Thus, there is still a need in the art for improved safety systems to prevent electrocution when using equipment and machinery around high-voltage lines.